Jack scrubbed a hand over his mouth, the look in his eyes distant for a few seconds. Then he focused on Kyle. "Okay, fine. But don't ever tell Danny I told you this. If you do, heaven only knows what will happen. The kid's volatile as it is. He's doing his best to hide how he feels, but it shines through and if you'd heard him having a nightmare, you'd sleep with one eye open too."
So, Daniel thought he had them fooled even though every single one of them knew what he had been going through and most likely still was going through. "You got my word. I won't tell him," Kyle promised. It was an easy promise to make. This wasn't something he would want to discuss with the younger man; not unless Daniel broached the topic himself.
"Okay ... there was this guy, Mr. Shanghai they called him; big man, fat, very ugly disposition, but charismatic like all hell. He could talk you out of your pants in a second if he wanted to. As word goes, he was bi-sexual. In other words, anything that was fuckable he would fuck. And I don't think he's ever had a willing lay in his life. Not from the way he handled things. He was quick to build up an army of willing henchmen to support and protect him. The moron twins were his right-hand men and they liked nothing better than breaking in the newbies. While Mr. Shanghai was in power, there was next to nothing they didn't do. It was a very ugly time here; very ugly." He shook his head and sent a long look up toward the ceiling of the mess hall. "Young guys like Danny were his favorite prey. Usually, though, it was the moron twins doing the deed. And even though such behavior should never be condoned anywhere, at least they stuck to fucking and that was the end of that. It's embarrassing like all hell, yes, and the guys it happens to get skittish and nervous, but at least it's nothing that leaves lasting scars."
Kyle frowned. He didn't agree with that at all, but did not want to antagonize these men until he had the whole story. "Well, I kinda got a look at the kid in the shower and he's littered with scars. Don't think I've ever seen that many scars on one man," he said.
Jack nodded. The others looked downright nauseous at this point; even Andy didn't look all that comfortable in his own skin right now. "That's because it didn't stop there with him. Mr. Shanghai took a liking to the kid, much to Garry's dismay. The kid was practically raped within the first ten hours of arriving here. Trust me, it's not the best way to start your prison sentence. Garry took pity on him, kept him away from the moron twins as much as he could, but he couldn't stick with the kid twenty-four seven, you know?"
Kyle nodded, but said nothing.
"Anyway ... Danny had been here a little over a year when it happened." Jack drew a deep breath and held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. "As I said, I didn't witness it and I thank my lucky stars I didn't. But Garry did and it nearly broke the guy. That Daniel is still up and moving is a fucking miracle in its own right. He should have been a gibbering vegetable or - which might have been kinder - dead."
He met Kyle's eyes dead on and Kyle briefly considered whether it was too late to opt out of the remains of this obviously gruesome tale. At the same time he couldn't suppress his curiosity and so did nothing to stop Jack from telling the rest of it.
"You saw the scar on his side?" Jack asked, to which Kyle nodded again. "They got him alone, cornered him, and stripped him down. Garry got there in time to see it, but not in time to stop it. And he couldn't 'cause Mr. Shanghai had all his goons there cheering it on and holding Garry back. From what Gar told me, the kid was crying, begging, and all it did was up the ante on him. He wouldn't hold still, you see; wouldn't take it again. He tried to fight back, threw punches left and right, but a kid like that, scared out of his mind ... he doesn't stand much of a chance against a hoard of assholes like that. So to keep him in one place, they impaled him on a piece of pipe sticking out of the floor. And then they took turns. Garry said it went on for about an hour before he managed to break free. And he did the only thing he could. He went straight for Mr. Shanghai. The goons were busy getting their jollies off, so nobody was really paying attention until Garry had hammered a piece of scrap metal into the fat guy's head. In the commotion, he managed to get Danny out of there and to the scanner. He said there was an appalling amount of blood. I'm surprised the kid didn't just die. I've known tougher men who would have."
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Kyle felt the first stirrings of righteous anger. In spite of recent events, he had always sworn that he wouldn't care about anyone but himself; that others would just trample all over him and only wanted to know him because he had money. And most of the time it was probably true. Up here, things were different, though. And the fact that this self-righteous entity that called itself the government of Pangaea allowed something like this to take place made him all the more determined to find a way to beat the system. "Are you telling me that this sort of thing ... goes unnoticed by those in charge?"
Jack eyed him curiously for a moment. "In charge?" he asked. "What do you think this place is? A little slice of paradise? We, the prisoners, are in charge here. There is no law up here and anybody is fair game. You really think our beloved government gives a flying fuck what happens to us?" He was not even trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice right now. "If one of the domes cracked tomorrow, you think they would go out of their way to send a repair crew? Most of this place is self-sustaining, like for instance the scanner. It's self-repairing. But if it breaks down beyond its capacity to repair itself, it's curtains for those of us who get hurt beyond our own capacity to heal. We're scrap metal on a junk heap to them. It's only a matter of time before we get melted down."
All in all that sounded pretty damned depressing. Kyle just sat there for a moment and stared at the other man before he leaned back on his chair and let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding in. "So ... the kid should have died from the injury, but the scanner fixed him?" he asked, to which Jack nodded.
"Yeah, it can fix you physically. But it can't do squat for your mind and that's the worst part of it. What that kid sees in his dreams makes my skin crawl. I've heard him. I'm right next to him. I hear him every fucking night. It's getting better. No doubt. But man ... I can't even begin to imagine how tough it must be for him to keep it together. It took him long enough to get up the courage to go out on his own again after that little event. After Mr. Shanghai bought the farm, things simmered down. A lot of his gang disappeared into the rear domes, some may still be alive. The only ones who hung around are the moron twins. They're simply too stupid to know they should just leave," Jack said.
"Why should they leave?" Andy broke in. "They've got it good here. They can get tail whenever they want. I don't see any of you loudmouths standing up to them."
Kyle glanced at him, admittedly surprised to hear him say this. Maybe Andy wasn't like his father after all. The old man would probably have shoved Daniel into the waiting arms of the moron twins to toughen him up. He sneered at the thought and looked away.
"Something funny?" Andy growled.
"I'm not laughing," Kyle countered and gave him a sharp look before returning his attention to Jack. "Is that true? You know this is going on and you don't do anything to stop it?"
Jack wasn't exactly looking at him right now. Instead he shrugged lightly. "What can we do?"
Looking around at all of them, Kyle wondered if the tough guys here weren't the two kids who had just left. The rest were old women from the looks of it. Bark, Jack, Andy, Stan, they were all able to pack a punch. "There's six of you if you count the boys. Eight with Vinnie and myself, even though I personally think Vinnie represents two guys," he said. "They're two. How frigging hard can it be to put them out of commission?"
Jack snorted halfheartedly. "You haven't been up against them. It's like dealing with a runaway rhino. When they start swinging, you're down for the count. And if we had stood up to them, it would have been the four of us. You can't count on the boys. They're too wounded from this, both of them."
Kyle had his own opinion about this, but he kept it to hims
elf for now. He didn't know these guys well enough yet. Then he glanced at Vinnie. "You wanna see that happen to Daniel again?" he asked.
Everybody's attention shifted to Vinnie who was staring darkly at the tabletop. "Fuck no," he said, pushed his chair back, got up and left.
A little taken aback by Vinnie's reaction, Kyle watched him go while he wondered where he was heading to. Then he arched an eyebrow.
"He's a nice guy, that Vinnie," Bark said.
"Yeah, he is," Kyle agreed a little thoughtfully.
Chapter 2
The honeymoon is over
The first week passed uneventfully. And in part he felt that it was thanks to his intervention. Daniel had a constant shadow these days and so far the moron twins hadn't shown up, according to Vinnie.
At first Daniel had seemed uncomfortable about having Vinnie follow him around everywhere, but after the first two days, he had obviously realized what Vinnie was doing and by the end of the week, they were thick as thieves.
When he got up that morning, Kyle found Daniel sitting on a chair outside his room, while Vinnie stared at something on the ground. He stopped a few paces away and watched them while Daniel made encouraging comments and Vinnie scratched his head.
"What are you two up to?" Kyle asked and closed the distance. There was some sort of framework on the ground and Vinnie was trying to put it together with little luck.
Daniel grinned brightly. "I have no idea what this is. Vin found it somewhere and says he can figure it out. Not much luck yet," he said.
Kyle smirked, but not so much at Vinnie's failing attempts at building something, but more at Daniel's disposition. The kid seemed a hell of a lot more upbeat than he had since they arrived. "What's it supposed to be, Vinnie?" he asked and stepped closer to eye the frame on the ground.
Vinnie made a face. "Beats the hell out of me," he confessed. "It just looked kinda interesting and I thought I could figure it out. But ... looks like I got that wrong."
In Kyle's opinion the frame looked like part of a door. "Where'd you get it?" he asked.
"There's a scrap heap at the other end," Vinnie said, nodding in that general direction. "Dan showed me."
"A scrap heap, huh?" Kyle asked while ideas started budding in his mind. His teachers at school had called him innovative when they hadn't told him off for getting into fights. Maybe he could use that innovation for something constructive here. He focused on Daniel. "Wanna show me too?"
Daniel grinned. "Sure. Why not," he agreed. "You mind, Vin?"
Vinnie eyed Kyle with a thoughtful expression, but then shrugged, and Kyle briefly considered asking him what he was thinking. "No. Let's go," Vinnie said.
Together the three of them headed toward the opposite end, a phrase that struck Kyle as funny since a dome per definition was round. There was no particular end to it unless you took into account the corridors leading to the other domes.
The scrap heap turned out to be just that; a scrap heap. Kyle figured there might be a few interesting items hidden away in the small hill of debris and started going through the top layer. After an hour of going through it, though, he figured that anything useful had been scavenged already. "Not much here," he said and dropped a broken lamp back onto the steep elevation of the heap.
Daniel, who was standing next to him, pushed the lamp further into the pile with the tip of his boot. "Guess not. The loonies have grabbed most of what's interesting. They snatch lights and stuff wherever they can reach it," he said and sent a look around, then glanced upward toward the top of the dome. "We should head back. This isn't the place to be at this time of day."
Kyle eyed him curiously and then sent a look upward too. "How do you know what time it is?" he asked.
Daniel considered this question for a moment while watching Vinnie pick up and drop a few things. "After a while, it comes naturally. In the beginning, I was completely messed up because I had no idea when to sleep or eat or be awake even. But you get into a rhythm after a while. You adjust to the people around you and the older guys have a routine."
"So ... there's no change in the light or something?" Kyle asked.
Daniel arched an eyebrow in surprise. "The light? No, but the stars change position," he said and nodded upward.
With a frown, Kyle focused on the dome above them and suddenly realized that Daniel wasn't checking the light, he was checking the stars seen faintly beyond the dome. "Ah," he said and grinned sheepishly. "See, I totally missed that one," he explained. "I thought you were looking for some barely discernible change in the light or something."
This made Daniel smirk. "There's no change in the light here. Jack looks for the stars and so do I," he said.
Kyle nodded, but then frowned lightly when he remembered something. "The mall," he said. "There's a roof over that. How can you go by the stars if you can't see them," he asked.
"That's easy too," Daniel said with a smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. "The airflow in that room changes before it shuts down. You didn't feel the breeze going through there?"
"Actually, no, I didn't notice it. But that makes sense," Kyle said and sent another look upward. "You gotta teach me about the alignments up there."
"Be happy to," Daniel said and glanced over at Vinnie. "You ready to head back, Vin?"
"Nah, I'm gonna stick around a bit longer, see if there's anything that might work," he countered and eyed Daniel. "Why don't you stay too?"
Kyle took that opportunity to study Daniel's reaction and it was obvious that the kid was nervous. But when it came to the protection Vinnie offered, Vinnie would win every time. Daniel glanced at Kyle and grimaced a little nervously. "Yeah, sure. But not too long, okay? This really isn't the place to be right now."
For a moment, Kyle lingered, not sure what exactly the problem was. "What's got you so spooked?" he asked.
Daniel folded his arms over his chest, for all intents and purposes looking like he was hugging himself against some undetectable chill and sent a brief look around. "This just isn't the place to be. The moron twins have a habit of coming through here regularly."
"Every day?" Kyle inquired, to which Daniel merely nodded. Those two had really managed to put the whammy on the kid - not that Kyle blamed him for being scared. "Alright then, I'll head back. See you in a bit," he said, raised a hand and started back the way they'd come. He could literally feel Daniel's eyes on his back all the way until he turned a corner. "Must be hell, having to be on your toes like that all the time," he muttered under his breath. It was hard to imagine what kind of strain this had to be putting on Daniel, but Kyle figured that with Vinnie's help, he could get Daniel to relax a little just by sticking close to the kid.
In his opinion, Daniel was essential to him right now. It didn't cross his mind that maybe there was more here than met the eye; that maybe he just liked the kid and wanted to help him out of a sticky situation. What was foremost on his mind was the fact that none of the others stood up for those two kids. Why was it that guys like the moron twins always managed to intimidate others? Bullies in schoolyards were usually outnumbered if the geeks they picked on stuck together, yet that scenario very rarely happened and it always baffled Kyle. There should be safety in numbers, but all it took was one loudmouthed shithead to dissolve the 'brotherhood' and leave everyone to their own devices. The same seemed to be true for this scenario. If they stood together, the moron twins wouldn't be able to touch Daniel and Billy, but nobody stood up to them. Vinnie was apparently the first one who had given them a run for their money since Garry's death and that told Kyle that the moron twins were bright enough to recognize a threat when they saw it. It bothered him beyond reason that those two could run this joint without interference while the others, who outnumbered them, cowered in fear. "Fucking cowards," Kyle muttered and swore quietly that he would do what he could to end this particular farce.
***
Path of peril
Back in his room, Kyle dropped
down on the single chair and looked around the sparsely furnished room. There really wasn't anything out there to decorate with; not the type of things he liked, at least. He would have to go through the storage room to see if there was anything useful in there.
With a tired sigh, he slumped back on the chair. "I miss silk," he muttered and snorted. "Hell, I miss coffee." This gave him an idea; maybe it was time to go say hi to those illustrious gardeners in dome 3. At least he might be able to lay his hands on some color in the shape of leaves or whatever they had over there.
He had always been impromptu of nature and even though his situation had definitely taken a turn for the worse, he could not deny what was at the core of him. He got up again and left his room behind to head toward the tunnel to dome 3. He didn't hesitate at the entrance and walked briskly through.
The first thing that struck him when he stepped into dome 3 was that, apart from the air being so much fresher and more vibrant than on the other side, there was also a good deal of humidity. He smirked and eyed the vast forest of plant life that spread out before him. There was a path leading in both directions, curving along the rim of the dome. The ground underneath was black rich soil and he was almost overwhelmed by the urge to hunker down and drive his fingers into it. The lights shining down on him were warm and he assumed they were growth lights.
The scent of green growing things was heavy in the air, intermingled with the scent of flowers. The idea of seeing something as rare as roses - free-growing roses anyway - sent a shiver of delight through him. On Earth, plant life was mostly contained to greenhouses and most of it was heavily protected and kept in a sterile environment to keep the outside air from contaminating and possibly killing what was left of Earth's lungs.
He stepped closer and reached up to touch the heavy, dark-green leaves hanging down from the treelike growth in front of him. "Awesome," he muttered at the tingling sensation this sent through his fingers.
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